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Brexit

Westminstenders: The beginning of the dictatorship and the end of Boris?

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 09/09/2017 10:55

Brexit is being fought in the UK media and parliament on the premise that the EU is being difficult and obstructive.

The fallacy can not be understated.

What the UK fails to understand is the right of the EU to put their own interests before the UKs. It doesn't under that our demands cannot be met even if the EU wanted to for practical and legal reasons - not political ones because our understanding of the situation and law is so poor.

The net result is the slippage of the next phase of Brexit talks being pushed to Christmas by the EU due to lack of progress by the UK. Barnier is open to more regular and intense talks but this is bad news for the UK with the a50 clock ticking.

The main stumbling block is NI a with Barnier warning not to use the border as a way to test EU resolve. Brexit always about the NI border. The UK have never provided a solution to the EU that does not produce a hard border. The idea being pushed by the UK will create one despite claiming it won't. The reality is the only viable solutions are either staying in the single market and customs union or NI being granted special status and being different to the rest of the country. The former is opposed by the government, the later opposed by the DUP.

The DUP are getting a taste of their own medicine. They have been warned that Assembly Members might have pay frozen and if they don't reform Stormont they won't get their Billion Pound Booty. Plus Ian Paisley Jr just found a new scandal for the party.

May is trying to channel Venezuela by getting rid of democracy when it suits. The Great Repel Bill (aka as the Withdrawal Bill) faces it's challenge. The much feared Henry VIII in clause 9 are not only facing criticism from Remainers but also from the secretive crackpots of Tory Bastard Club (aka ERG). The TBC want hard cliff edge Brexit. May seems to support given her goodwill burning interference at the Home Office which seeks to discriminate against all foreigners and make them sign a register. The visa system and how it will attract much needed staff for the NHS makes the mind boggle.

The Repel Bill also could end the possibility of transition due to clause 6 which requires us to leave the ECJ. Given the May's ambition to make EU citizens display their stars in job applications this is totally unable to the EU. If it passes the chances of transition drop dramatically. Bye bye Smooth and Orderly.

Then there is the May-Bot paradox: the one were she gives a friendly speech to the EU and a nasty on to the Swivel Eyed Loon gathering. As if neither will be reported to the other audience.

On top of this May is attempting the Parliament Rigging Act as she has a 'majority Government'. Yep I know, this is the general election version of 'will of the people'. The Rigging Act seeks to stack parliamentary committees with Tory majorities so they can stop any bill they don't like getting anywhere need the main chamber this limiting the power of opposition to irrelevant. Sadly I think this one will get through due to maths of the HoC atm.

We shouldn't forget the role of the HoL though and the lack of a majority government (why do you think May is saying majority government? It's down to the Sewell convention and trying to make the case it applies when the argument is it doesn't for a minority government).

The other development is the rumours that Boris is for the boot. And Rees-Mogg might get a promotion.

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LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 16:04

I don't believe he lied, LH. I think that, like a lot of politicians, he fell victim to his own vanity. Post 9/11 no one was thinking straight. We got suckered, like this time.

I do. 2003 wasn't "post" 9-11" enough to excuse the mistake. For reasons I can't explain TB wanted to go to war, and that was that.

One of the things David Cameron could have been remembered for was his insistence on parliamentary approval for action in Syria (which he didn't need). It was a small step to recover some trust. Obviously since pissed away, so it needn't bother us any more.

FWIW, I don't actually blame Labour over that. It was Blair, and Blair alone from where I sat, as an informed, concerned voter.

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 16:07

How does @realDonaldTrump know that the idiots who put a device on the Tube were 'known to Scotland Yard'? Intelligence leak? Or guesswork?

In Trumps case, "intelligence" can be discounted.

idiots ????? Is that a slip of the keyboard, lazy grammar or a hint at something we weren't supposed to know.

The perpetrator will have been caught on countless CCTV feeds. Haystack: meet needle. Needle: haystack.

DrivenToDespair · 15/09/2017 16:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 16:32

A lot of Britons really, really believe that the UK feels as close to the US as the UK does because it's part of the Anglo sphere and "inheritor" of the UK's imperial super power status.

A less polite way of summing that up is that a lot of Britons are thick, and know nothing about Suez, Greneda, the Falklands, Blue Streak, or indeed, the US constitution.

And I'm going to go as far as to note that the UK - Great Britain - was only really a naval superpower. Which when the only way to get around the word was by sea, made us a de facto superpower.

It's no coincidence that the decline of the British Empire goes in lockstep with the rise of air power.

EternalOptimistToo · 15/09/2017 16:32

www.huffingtonpost.fr/cecile-c/10-choses-qui-m-ont-fait-adorer-l-angleterre-et-que-je-deteste-aujourd-hui_a_23205448/?utm_hp_ref=fr-cest-la-vie&ncid=fcbklnkfrhpmg00000002
For those of you who want to make use of google translate Wink
A nice article showing that actually summarise well how I feel about it all.
Also note the fact that a lot of 'foreigners' now feel uncomfortable speaking their language outside the house. Something I know I am much more careful about nowdays that I ever was.

EternalOptimistToo · 15/09/2017 16:33

LH also worth noting that the UK has now NO naval force to speak off....

woman11017 · 15/09/2017 16:34

@lemondefr
Brexit : vous avez quitté ou réfléchissez à quitter l’Angleterre pour revenir en France, témoignez

Le Monde looking for thoughts from French/ British, now looking to return to France.

EternalOptimistToo · 15/09/2017 16:35

I fully agree about the idea of the special relationship with the US. I believe that the issue of petrol was also in TB mind.
I, personally, have never thought that thee was ANY weapons of mass destruction there and was appalled by the treatment of the whisle blower (can someone remember his name??) who ended up 'committing suicide' at the most opportune moment.....

woman11017 · 15/09/2017 16:42

David Kelly.^
eternaloptimist refreshing honesty in that article, including the irony of European royal family in a country full of connards nationalistes and really sad on the sense of humour loss. Except in this manor. Smile

BigChocFrenzy · 15/09/2017 16:48

< apologies to anyone eating their tea >

This is the Times preview of May's speech in Florence (the town famously associated with Botticceli)

BigChocFrenzy · 15/09/2017 16:49

At least Boris is fully clothed - even the Times wouldn't go there

Badders08 · 15/09/2017 16:52

😂🤔🤢

thecatfromjapan · 15/09/2017 16:55

That's quite brutally sharp.

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 16:57

EternalOptimistToo

I defy anyone to read that article with a dry eye.

woman11017 · 15/09/2017 16:58

It's an elegy, ain't it.

thecatfromjapan · 15/09/2017 17:00

I know we're not supposed to talk about other threads but ... I'm just going to sneakily do this in a very unobtrusive way. The thread about rising food prices is a real-time demonstration about the mental contortions people are prepared to undertake to avoid thinking politically. I think it gives a bit of an insight into the sort of things people are going to be saying - and how we're going to be asked to think (or should that be not think) over the coming years.

IdontlooklikeEmmaWatson · 15/09/2017 17:06

There's obviously an underlying feeling of being under siege from all directions and as if there are multiple threats to our society.

Divide and conquer.

If global politics is leaning to the right now on the whole, where does that leave more lefty academic institutions around the world and especially in the US and UK? Are they without influence?

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 17:08

There have been quite a few threads (I feel they are increasing too ...) where the OPs kick-off is basically a paraphrasing of what was warned about if we Leave ...

Increasing prices, decreased purchasing power being the most obvious.

This time next year, the skills exodus will be biting hard too.

I would be amusing if MNHQ moved those threads to this board as a matter of course. Because it would be the truth.

thecatfromjapan · 15/09/2017 17:11

Yes, Lurking. Some of the responses make me despair. Sad

RedToothBrush · 15/09/2017 17:16

Haha perhaps requests should be made to move them to the EU referendum board.

OP posts:
TheElementsSong · 15/09/2017 17:16

a bit of an insight into the sort of things people are going to be saying - and how we're going to be asked to think (or should that be not think) over the coming years.

How did people become like this? Are we going to look back in future centuries, and realise that it was palm oil in our food, plastic fibres in the water supply, or diesel particulates in the air, or have we reached this state of stupor of our own free will?

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 17:17

Some of the responses make me despair.

On the plus side:

  1. Some people are getting it. Just because they don't post about it on MN or FB or MySpace ...

  2. Given the electoral demographics of the UK, it will be apparent that many people who type a load of crap on such threads also don't/didn't vote and can be safely ignored.

When we voted in June, there was an odd incident. Just before MrsLH wheeled into the booth, an elderly gentleman emerged. It was clear from the questions he asked the tellers he had never voted in his life. I was fascinated and wanted to get to ask him why he had chosen 60+ years after he could first vote to actually do it. Was he a Corbynista ?

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 17:19

How did people become like this? Are we going to look back in future centuries, and realise that it was palm oil in our food, plastic fibres in the water supply, or diesel particulates in the air, or have we reached this state of stupor of our own free will?

Well, the Romans died out because of Lead water pipes ....

LurkingHusband · 15/09/2017 17:29

www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/15/just_how_are_hmrcs_it_systems_going_to_cope_with_brexit/

So they're hoping to push a 30-year old system to go another 30 years ?

TheElementsSong · 15/09/2017 17:34

I'm quite enjoying the increasing Outrage-with-a-capital-O on the food thread, at Remainers blaming the ineffable perfection of Brexit Grin

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